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Voilà quelques photos de mes vacances au Maroc.

Nous sommes allés au souk et nous avons vu les vieux hommes qui vendent la menthe.
Nous avons bu le thè à la menthe sans sucre parce qu’avec sucre c’est trop sucré pour nous.

Nous avons vu les garçons au fleuve et les femmes qui lavent les tapis au fleuve.
J’ai dit, Laisse-pas le robinet ouvert quand tu te brosse les dents il faut conserver de l’eau.
Nous avons cherché les hotels avec les piscines. J’ai fait les plongeons.

Nous avons acheté trois poissons du marché à la rue et un garçon les ont grillés à son stand. Nous les ont mangés à la rue avec les doigts.
Nous nous sommes senti fiers que nous avons mangé à la rue sans peur et, plus tard, sans maladie.

Nous avons vu les ânes en transportant les gens, du bois, des legumes et un mouton.
J’ai dit, Je voudrais un âne quand j’ai une maison à la campagne, ils sont mignons.

I am reading about Orientalism in the 19th and 20th Century, and I feel a little guilty. In Algeria I am disappointed because the markets aren’t ‘authentic’. In Morocco we take photos of sand-swept Kasbahs and women in veils leading donkeys; I wear a scarf round my head on the beach like Lawrence of Arabia – a Spanish man shows me how to do it and says ‘It’s like Lawrence of Arabia’. Or rather, perhaps it’s like Peter O’Toole playing Lawrence of Arabia in the film. Lawrence of Arabia was a British army Lieutenant Colonel.

One German and two French scientists won the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine , traditionally the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year.
The prestigious prize goes to Harald zur Hausen of Germany for his work into the cause of cervical cancer and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier of France for their discovery of the virus that causes AIDS.  In September 2003, I had the chance to interview Professor Luc Montagnier about his research. I think it would be interesting to cite some of his answers.  

Which are the major breakthroughs in the fight against AIDS for the last 20 years?           The isolation of HIV-1, HIV-2 in 1983 and 1985, the design of the blood tests in 1985 and the application of drugs (active on virus multiplication), starting from 1996. 

What was the source of HIV?           For HIV-2 it seems clear that it comes from a West African monkey called Sooty mangabey. For HIV-1, most scientists believe that it comes from chimpanzees. In fact the problem is not where it comes from, because the passage from animal to man may have occurred many times in the past in Africa and yet there was no AIDS epidemic. The main question is to ask why the AIDS epidemic started within the 70s in Africa and in North America I believe that some microbial co-factors increased the transmissibility and made it more virulent at that time, together with increased sexual promiscuity.  

It is believed that there was an injustice concerning your research about AIDS, as you were the major contributor for the isolation of the virus.           The problem with the Americans is now completely solved. We have become friends again and actually Dr Gallo and I have published a joint paper in the journal SCIENCE and there would be another joint paper in the story about the discovery of HIV, signed by both of us.  Doctor Gallo agreed that we were the first, at the Pasteur Institute, to isolate the virus but his group made also an important contribution to show that the virus was the cause of AIDS. So there is no more difficulty.  

Is Africa a forgotten continent?           No, it is not, absolutely not. Of course there are several countries which have still a very high rate on infection. But there are some hopes. First, some prevention campaigns have shown efficiency. Second, now the prices of the anti retroviral drugs have been decreased, both by the drug companies and also by giving access to generic drugs made in India or Brazil. The World Trade Organization recently accepted that there will be exception for drugs which act on AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. This is in the good direction, but this is not sufficient. My proposal is that we should encourage all the countries which have high HIV infection to create some specific centers for clinical research, for treating patients and for giving them education, prevention advice. And these centers should act not only in large cities but also radiate to small villages. Our Foundation tries to implement some centers along that concept. We have already created one center in West Africa (Abidjan, Ivory Coast), and we are contributing to the installment of a similar center in Cameroon. Our objectives now are to transfer the technology, to help these countries to have a network of centers treating HIV infection by some other ways, not only by triple therapy. Some of these drugs could be made also by the concerned countries, implying creation of factories in Southern and Central Africa. 

AIDS changed the way we view the world. Puritanism made a victorious come back. What do you have to say about that?           The problem is not puritanism, but laxism. Many young people are completely forgetting about HIV and Aids. They don’t take any precautions. I think this is the main problem. They think that AIDS is curable, this is not true, there is no cure and the anti retroviral drugs are making patients better but they are not curing the disease. Those are still infected and still infectious. So I think the most important goal is to develop prevention campaigns especially at schools and of course not only based on the use of condoms. Individuals should choose between the use of condoms, abstinence, and faithfulness.

Ma petite fille le jour de l’Aid el fitr.

Bonjour,

je présente mes voeux de l’aid el fitr a tous et a toutes

aid moubarek

s

Eid Ul-Fitr marks the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan. It is celebrated by the happiness of everyone and family gatherings, but some cultural or traditional aspects turn it into a disaster.

http://www.iansa.org/

Un coup de balai et le tour est joué vous cesserez de fumer voire même de respirer ….Un couple de Malaisiens été battu à mort par ses proches dans le cadre d’un rituel censé les faire renoncer au tabagisme et soulager leurs maux.  Au cours de la conversation, la famille a évoqué les tentatives de Mohamed pour arrêter de fumer et les problèmes d’asthme et de foie de son épouse.  “Suite à cela, un des parents âgé de 23 ans a suggéré de recourir à un rituel consistant à frapper le couple pour les libérer de ses maux.  Les deux victimes, frappées à coups de casques de moto et de balais, ont succombé à leurs blessures.  C’est aberrant de voir un pays comme la Malaisie, pays à majorité musulmane souffrir de ce genre de pratiques….C’est qu’ils n’ont rien compris de notre noble religion qu’est l’islam.« Nos oreilles ne cesseront de grandir, de nouvelles histoires viendront tjrs les rajeunir »SBK

Susana is right when she says “Excuses are not made to be presented. They’re made to be avoided”, but here I’m apologizing for my long absence in this blog, and like her I have no great excuses to present. First it was a long month of work in August, when everyone else was away enjoying the sunny days at the beach. Then my deserved vacations, and after that the painful return to work… Yeahhh…Bad excuses, I know…
But here I’m again, ready for resuming my blogger activity. And we this post, I would also like to make an appeal to other girls. We need to “restart our engines” to make possible a second season of our adventure.
Almost one year after our first meeting in Alexandria so much as change in our lives: some have new jobs, others moved to other cities or even countries; some have just get married others are having babies. So much life, so much to tell! Come on girls, let’s start again!

Pictures I took at the Sunflower theatre in Beirut. This exhbit is based on true stories that were told to the author of the exhibit, so each one represents a real person, a true story while they were running away from Palestine, or stories they heard…

Lebanese photographer Rima Maroun has officially been announced as the winner of the Anna Lindh Euro-Med Award for the Dialogue between Cultures in 2008, the Anna Lindh Foundation said Tuesday. The Award, which is bestowed and voted on by the members of the Anna Lindh Foundation’s networks of civil society present in over 30 countries, recognizes this year the contribution of art in promoting mutual understanding in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

The third edition of the Euro-Med Award for Dialogue between Cultures, an initiative of the Anna Lindh Foundation and its partner Fondazione Mediterraneo, was launched back in April 2008, with nominations received from civil-society organizations across the region. For the very first time in this year’s edition, members of the Anna Lindh Foundation region-wide network, totaling close to two thousand civil-society organizations, participated in electing Maroun as the winner.

“If I try to create an artistic work, it is because I am convinced that arts calls for real dialogue, real listening and real sharing; that it is one of the rare places where people can meet their human side,” stressed Rima who, in addition to being a photographer, is also a talented young playwright and theater performer.

Among her exceptional art works is the photographic project called “Murmures” [whispers] produced in 2007 in the village of Qana, situated in Southern Lebanon, where Rima photographed the daily life of a family of survivors after the Israeli war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006. This year Maroun’s Murmures was exhibited in many countries like Syria and France.

Maroun has been appointed good will ambassador by the Anna Lindh Foundation